by Rebecca Tope
It was like a slap on the face. ‘No! Of course that’s not true,’ Thea shouted. ‘The idea’s utterly ludicrous. I’m a house-sitter, for God’s sake. That’s all I am.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ sneered Sophie. ‘So prove it. Stay away from us from now on. Just mind your own business and leave us alone. It was bad about the fire – I’ll give you that. It’s not connected to our group in any way, though. And by now the Tanner boys will have been caught. Even if there’s no evidence it was them, they’ll be scared off doing anything else. You’re perfectly safe, just so long as you let things alone.’
Thea was still shaking with frustration and rage at the suggestion that she was a spy. ‘You’ve confused me with Mrs Foster,’ she accused. ‘She might have sneaked, but that’s not the kind of thing I’d do. It’s underhand. It’s …’ She remembered, all over again, that her own beloved Drew had done something very similar himself. He had reported a nursing home for suspicious behaviour. And Drew was the most upstanding, moral, ethical man imaginable. ‘It’s just not the way I do things,’ she tailed off awkwardly.
‘Bullshit!’ said Nella again. The word seemed strangely foreign in her plummy English mouth, as well as very forceful. It conveyed a lot of meaning in two small Anglo-Saxon syllables. Funny, Thea reflected foolishly, the way it had been taken over by Americans.
‘It’s a surveillance society,’ said Sophie, with a didactic glitter in her eye. ‘We live like people in the Soviet Union used to, watching everything we say, never trusting anybody. Surveillance on every corner, telephones bugged, computers monitored. Everywhere you look, it’s corrupt and dishonest. There’s no goodness left.’
It was a tragic way to view the world and Thea felt a stab of pity for this young woman, who managed to sound like a Soviet citizen herself much of the time. She also felt angry at the way Tiffany Whiteacre was being drawn into the same outlook at far too early an age. No doubt there were many others lured by the adventure and sense of setting things to rights. Sophie, Thea thought again, was a dangerous individual.
‘Of course there is,’ she argued hotly. ‘There are a million examples of goodness and beauty in every little village in the world. People being kind and generous, working together, laughing, loving …’
‘“What a wonderful wo-o-orld”,’ sang Sophie satirically. ‘Listen to yourself. It’s sickening.’
‘You’re the one who’s sick,’ said Thea, feeling a physical nausea rising in her throat. ‘Besides, you don’t really believe it yourself. Why would you be spending all your time fighting and arguing like this if you didn’t think there were things worth saving?’
Sophie scowled and shook her head. ‘That’s enough. We’re going now. Just remember what we said. Stay out of our business. We don’t want to see you again.’
‘The feeling’s mutual,’ Thea spat childishly.
She slammed the door behind them, and kicked an angry foot across the burnt patch in the hall, wondering what she ought to do next, if anything. Nothing was clear any more. A man had died and another was unconscious in hospital, somehow as a result of a twisted morality that until that week she might well have endorsed. The character of Danny Compton remained mysterious, but she remained fairly sure there was nothing wicked in Jack Handy’s make-up. Sheila Whiteacre and her husband had seemed thoroughly pleasant people and yet their son was apparently capable of hitting a man’s head with a large stick. Their daughter had recovered sufficiently from the trauma of a violent death to defend her brother’s actions. Who were these people, then?
The need to find at least a partial answer to this question would very probably ensure that she defied their order to mind her own business.
Chapter Fourteen
Somewhere in the kitchen her phone was warbling, and she couldn’t find it. Her bag and coat had been carelessly slung over the back of a chair, and forgotten. The sound was faint and muffled, and she only heard it because she’d gone to boil the kettle and was trying to remember whether she’d given Gwennie her early evening walk. ‘Go out anyway for a bit,’ she suggested, and opened the back door.
The phone wasn’t in her bag, and by the time she located it in her coat pocket, the ringing had stopped. But the clever phone informed her that Drew had been the caller, and suggested she ring him back. Which she did.
‘Sorry!’ she said, the moment he answered. ‘I couldn’t find the phone.’
‘No problem. How are you?’
‘Fine,’ she said automatically, before correcting herself. ‘No, that’s not true at all. I’m angry, exhausted, confused and slightly scared. How are you?’
‘Surprised, concerned, excited and frustrated,’ he listed thoughtfully. ‘Sounds as if I’ve had a better day than you.’
‘Could hardly be worse, actually. So tell me the good things that have been so surprising and exciting.’
‘No, no. You go first.’
‘Honestly, I don’t think I can bear to go through it all again. I am all right, really. Just a lot to think about. You can cheer me up.’
‘Okay,’ he said reluctantly. ‘It feels a bit selfish, though.’
‘Drew! Get on with it.’
He laughed. ‘Well, you remember the business with the nursing home?’
‘Vividly.’
‘It’s turning into something amazing. I’ve had about ten phone calls from a whole lot of people congratulating me for being so brave and honest. Some of them say they’ll definitely use my services when the time comes. One has an ancient mother expected to die any day now. Everybody insists they’re grateful to me for sounding the alarm.’
‘Blowing the whistle,’ said Thea.
‘Actually, I don’t like that image. It makes me sound like a traffic cop or a football referee.’
‘Better than a sneak or a spy.’
‘What?’
‘There’s been something similar happening here, with much less positive results.’ She explained about Mrs Foster and the felonious Mr Tanner. ‘They’re sure that’s the explanation for the fire yesterday. His sons were taking revenge.’
‘Nasty,’ he said slowly. ‘I was expecting something of the sort myself, only yesterday. Now I seem to be a hero.’ He sounded puzzled. ‘Hard to account for the difference. Doesn’t anybody admire Mrs Foster for what she did?’
‘I don’t know. There appears to be sympathy for the Tanner family, in some quarters at least.’
‘It’s weird,’ he said. ‘I feel totally helpless. None of it is within my own control, and yet it was me who made it all happen in the beginning.’
‘And I didn’t do anything,’ she whined. ‘I might have burnt to death and been an absolutely innocent victim.’
‘Horrible.’ He sounded thoroughly rattled. ‘And you’ve implied that more nasty things have happened since then.’
‘Yes, they have. And now the whole community seems to be angry with me.’ She gave a very brief summary of Jack Handy’s assault and the visitation from the three protesters. ‘And I’ve got his poor dog tied up in the garage. The old woman at the farm must be wondering what’s happened to her.’
‘Her herself or her the dog?’
‘The dog. Rags. She’s very good, but obviously bewildered.’
‘Couldn’t you have taken her home?’
‘I could, yes. But it was dark and I’d had enough for one day. Sheila said I might have trouble finding the farm. It isn’t really my job, anyway.’
‘You made it your job when you put the animal in your car.’
‘Did I?’ She gave this some thought. ‘Is that where I go wrong, then? Doing that kind of thing?’
‘Some people might think so. I just regard it as a very admirable wish to help.’
She laughed. ‘Thanks. But you’re right about it all getting out of control. I can’t see any way to help now. I feel strongly tempted to just drive home – or down to you – and let them go to hell in their own sweet ways.’
‘You’d be welcome,’ he said with a gentle purr.
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‘The kids might not agree.’
‘The kids adore you,’ he protested. ‘How could you think otherwise?’
‘They don’t, Drew. That’s a huge overstatement. They mistrust me, and quite right too. I have outrageous designs on their father.’
He chuckled, then turned serious again. ‘No sex talk on the phone, please. I’ve warned you about that before. It does nobody any good.’
‘Quite right,’ she said primly. ‘But it’s nice to hear your voice, all the same. It makes an enormous difference.’
‘Likewise. But you’re wrong about the children, you know. Mistrust is quite the wrong word. They’re just unsure about what happens next.’
Thea’s heart thudded. ‘Nobody can predict the future,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s bad enough trying to keep up with what’s going on in the present.’
‘Okay,’ he said, before falling silent for a moment. Then he came back more strongly, ‘So, listen. I realise you haven’t told me everything, and I am definitely concerned about you, but I guess you can take care of yourself. You’ve got that big strong police detective watching your back. He’s much more use than I would ever be, even if I was by your side. Lock the doors and pull the duvet over your head. They say it’ll be warm and sunny tomorrow. Take the dogs somewhere peaceful and enjoy it.’
‘I never told you about Jessica,’ she realised. ‘But that can wait. I’ll be fine – you’re absolutely right. And it’s great that you’ve been hailed as a hero. Richly deserved.’
‘Not really. You know – I was expecting something awful to happen in retribution for my treachery. I was all for moving to Broad Campden and giving up this place altogether.’
‘If you did that you’d get retribution from Maggs. You can’t escape.’ She spoke lightly, but the idea of Drew living in the Cotswolds, far from his old life in Somerset, was one she often entertained as a highly appealing answer to their difficulties.
‘One day,’ he said quietly. ‘One day, we’ll have everything just as we want it.’
‘There you go again,’ she said lightly. ‘Although you can’t let that poor house sit there empty for much longer.’
‘I know,’ said Drew.
She finished the call and dropped the phone into her bag as if it weighed twenty kilos. Her body felt heavy too. Weariness flooded through her, as if the mere act of remaining alive were a hugely burdensome effort. ‘It’s all too much,’ she muttered, not entirely sure what she meant.
She had been sitting at the kitchen table, the dogs sharing Gwennie’s bed, keeping her company. Outside, Rags was silent and Thea hoped she was asleep. Whatever had possessed her to take on the responsibility for yet another dog? What sort of rescue fantasy had she been following this time? Was that what Drew had been hinting at, she wondered. Did she regard herself as some kind of female Sir Galahad, righting wrongs and solving murder investigations? It was perfectly evident that other people behaved in different ways, blithely ignoring suffering and injustice and appalling crimes, so long as it did not directly concern them. They knew, better than Thea did, that there were repercussions and consequences to small acts that went against the general grain.
She recalled an incident, years ago, in a hardware shop. A man wearing a baggy mackintosh had calmly gathered a selection of three or four tools and clasped them to his chest, underneath the coat, obviously intent on stealing them. Thea had seen him clearly. She had met his eyes, so he knew that she knew what he was doing. He did not wink, or grimace, or make any sort of silent plea. He simply let her see him, and make her own decision. Jessica, aged about ten, had been with her, but had been looking in another direction, missing the whole thing. Thea had done nothing. She had ordered her brain and conscience to stay in abeyance, thinking nothing, blanking her own knowledge. It worked long enough for her to move to the other side of the shop with her daughter, giving the man his chance.
Gradually she had filled with anger – against the man and herself in equal measure. How did he dare? And why had she let him? Something had paralysed her, and it was months or even years before she grasped something of what it had been. It came back to her whenever there was a news item about public collusion in crime, or the opposite. Every time an individual stepped forward and tried to do the right thing, it seemed they got hurt in some way. Chasing after a thief, reporting a wrongdoer, standing up when everyone else remained seated – it put you in danger. Except for golden boy Drew Slocombe, of course. He was the exception. He excepted himself, singled himself out for judgement and vengeance, and found himself covered in glory as a result.
‘Well, good for him,’ she murmured, meaning it both literally and cynically. Then she heard the collie outside yap and remembered that she too had done a good thing that day.
She went through the house, room by room, straightening ornaments, fingering plants, wiping a smudge off a window with her sleeve. She was keeping it all safe as instructed, earning her pay. Everything was clean and orderly, waiting for the return of its people. Apart from the hall carpet, of course, and even that had been saved from much worse damage thanks to Thea’s quick response. She had nothing to reproach herself for.
She rewarded herself with a film showing on Channel Four, both dogs on the sofa beside her and a large mug of coffee placed securely on a small table. The film involved a surprise pregnancy, which inevitably sent her thoughts back to Damien and Maggs and the vast change there would be to the futures of both couples. Assumptions crumbled to ash, new plans forced upon more than the central four individuals. As aunt, Thea herself would be drawn into the destiny of her brother’s new child. Another person to buy for at Christmas; another source of news and opinion from her mother. Another little hostage to fortune, too. The child might have problems, mental or physical. The family might be required to rally round to an uncomfortable degree. If nothing else, the poor little thing should have some respite from its father’s obsessive addiction to religion. Aunt Thea might supply that, she supposed – although Auntie Jocelyn was likely to be a much better bet, with her own disorganised litter of cousins who would show the newcomer as much of real life as it could bear, given that Damien allowed it anywhere near them.
And Maggs – the arrival of a baby in that household would, she hoped, carry even more direct implications for herself and Drew. She hoped she would still be important to him by the time the baby was born. She hoped she might be allowed some direct involvement with the work, learning the arcane rituals surrounding even the simplest of funerals. She could replace Maggs, in the early part of the baby’s life. It would be sweet to do so, a new direction she would be delighted to embrace.
In the film, everything worked out for the best, the final shots of optimism and conciliation a Hollywood necessity. Perhaps there was hope in real life too, thought Thea with a sigh.
She went to bed early, deliberately not thinking about Rags or her injured owner. Nor did she obsess about protest groups, quarries or arsonists. For the time being, she assured herself that everything was quiet. Malefactors would be going to bed, too, hoping the nagging images and anxieties created in their own hearts by their actions might be blanked out by sleep. It was an aspect of crime that Thea sometimes dwelt on – the effect of an extreme act of violence on its perpetrator. She never got very far with her deliberations, unable to place herself in the skin of these people. But one day, she promised, she would gain some useful understanding of it. Until then, even the thought processes of a shoplifter remained obscure to her.
But when she did fall asleep, her own dreams were filled with worrying scenes of fire and failure. She was entrusted with a baby, only to leave it on the very edge of a sheer cliff where it would certainly roll to its death unless rescued. A dog somehow materialised, covered in a foul brown slime, adding to her responsibilities. Her feet refused to move, mired in something heavy and clinging.
She fought back to wakefulness, like someone coming out of deep water for air. Her dog was warm on her feet and everything was s
ilent and still. A clock with green digital figures told her it was barely past midnight. The desperation from the dream mutated into resentment. Why was her mind full of such undeserved anxiety and trauma? She had done nothing wrong. What was she doing taking on other people’s guilt and inadequacy? She, Thea Osborne, was innocent. She was tempted to shout it out loud, but Hepzie might take it badly. Punching her pillow angrily, she did her best to slip back into a more restorative slumber.
Chapter Fifteen
The dream she remembered on waking had centred around Danny Compton, lying dead, broken and faceless in a stony indentation at the foot of a high cliff. It was as if her unconscious was reminding her that that individual’s death was very much the central issue, amongst everything that had happened. The police would be focusing more on that than anything else. She forced her mind back to Sunday, when Higgins had turned up to ask about Jack Handy. He had told her then that Danny’s parents lived in Dubai, and that he had carried no identification with him. Normal practice, she supposed, for habitual troublemakers roaming the countryside disrupting official activities. The fact that they had succeeded quite well in saving the lives of a lot of badgers had doubtless pushed them into new areas of protest. Thea herself was aware of a recent study showing how destructive noise was to the well-being of wildlife. Major roads and railways created large-scale changes to the normal behaviour of creatures large and small. Drainage, verge-cutting, tree-felling – even things that were intended to help sustain the environment – all reduced the numbers and health of animals and birds living in field and woodland. Daglingworth Quarry, she suddenly realised, must obviously be a huge example of disruption and damage, in existence for years and guilty of extreme noise and devastation. Could it be, then, that Danny’s death was a quarry-related message of some sort? Had the protest group challenged the quarrying and thereby infuriated its owners?
